Burger Wuss (11 page)

“Hello?” said Diana.

“He is a sweet boy. I’m telling you, young lady, you
are not going to find a sweeter boy anywhere else soon, especially nowadays, when all the young men are hooligans who hunt the streets, stealing appliances and breaking into computers and calling each other ‘blood pal.’”

“Ask her to come over for chops!” my father said. “Afterward, we’ll have a little Ping-Pong tourney!”

“Hi, Mrs. Gravitz,” I said.

“Mrs. Gravitz?! Tell her to get off the line!” said my mother. “You’re having a private conversation.”

“What are they yelling about in the background?” said Diana. “Your parents.”

“They’re inviting you to dinner tomorrow.”

My mother nodded proudly.

“This isn’t going to work,” said Diana.

“Why not?”

“Can’t she come?” said my mother.

“Listen, young lady,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “This boy is an angel. He is a saint. He should be declared a saint by the pope in Rome.”

“You haven’t told your parents yet, have you?” said Diana.

“No,” I answered. “Not quite yet.”

“Anthony!” she sighed. “You’ve got to deal with this! It’s real. I’m sorry, but it’s real.”

“You can understand . . . ,” I said miserably.

“There’s nothing to understand, Anthony,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “Was this girl unfaithful to you? Is that what it is? Don’t get yourself mixed up with one of these little tarts.”

“Mrs. Gravitz,” I said. “Please get off the phone. I can’t hear myself think.”

“Mom,” said Mrs. Gravitz’s daughter, somewhere on the other line, “you really should let them talk. Anthony, maybe this girl would be more receptive if you backed off and gave her a little me-space. Have you considered that your affection might be crowding her?”

“Diana,” I shouted through the hail of voices. “Diana, I really just need to talk to you.”

Diana said, “I’m not sure what good talking would do. This is too crazy.”

“It’s not crazy, Diana,” I pleaded. “It’s only crazy because the portable phone is screwed up.”

“I just can’t deal with this.”

“Diana . . .”

“This was a mistake to call you.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“I’ve got to go.” I heard her hang up.

Finally, there was silence on the line. My mother was watching me.

“Okay,” I said to the empty phone line. “If not tomorrow, then maybe sometime next week. All right. Great. Good-bye, then.”

“Anthony,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “The little trollop already hung up on you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gravitz,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

I pressed the off button on the phone.

“Not coming?” said my mother.

“No,” I said.

“Nothing wrong, is there?”

“No,” I lied.

I turned off the TV, and went outside to walk.

We had one softball practice before our game against Burger Queen. It was on a muggy day. We did some warm-up exercises first. We ran around the field a few times. I ran well.

My batting, on the other hand, was not great. I am not very coordinated. Later I kind of screwed up in the outfield. It was hot and my shirt felt wet and sticky. I stopped concentrating.

I don’t like really like team sports. I can’t stand all the stupid things you have to shout. I don’t like being required to get loud and excited. I don’t understand why some people are so anxious to prove that they are better than other people. Especially at games that only show you’re better at skills I’m not sure are needed very often, like:

I stood there in the outfield, trying to think of other scenarios where those particular talents come in handy.

I hadn’t come up with a single one when the ball landed beside me. People swore at me and told me to stop dreaming. I felt a little sheepish. The batter made it to third.

In general, though, I guess I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t the
worst on the team, in any case. This guy named Stan had burned himself with the fry rack the week before and he couldn’t even put on his glove without going “Woooeeeoooeeeooo.” He took off his glove and shook his hand out. On the back of his wrist, there was a crisscross of red welts. When he finally got the glove on and caught a ball, he fell down, and started shrieking lots of things including blasphemy and the names of the whole urinary tract, from the bladder down.

When Mike saw me run, I think he was a little more pleased that I was on Team O’Dermott’s. It was the one time he talked to me all day. Even Turner was impressed. The next day at work, he came up to me and said, “You aren’t good at softball. But hey: You don’t suck.”

I was not always proud to be wearing the O’Dermott’s green. When you are wearing a green polyester smock, people don’t treat you like another person. Fathers talk to you like you’re a machine. Mothers talk to you like you’re slow and inbred. Kids talk to you like you’re sad. Usually they seem rich. It seems like they’re going to spend the summer’s day doing something sunny, exciting, and warm. Sometimes they have their own cars. Sometimes their cars are expensive. They seem like they’re going to the beach, or to someone’s house. They don’t mind showing off their skin to each other. They talk to each other in the line, even if they don’t know
each other. They didn’t talk to us, the employees, unless they knew us.

This is probably unfair of me to say. A lot of them probably had jobs at garages or convenience stores. But somehow they didn’t act like it when they came in for lunch or dinner. They acted like they were out on the town.

It was hard not to feel ugly. Crusty. Doped. My fingernails were black. My shirt was stiff. My hair hung flat. My skin was shellacked with ambient lard. I had to move as quickly as possible to keep the line down.

When two girls came in wearing half-shirts, their skin looking fresh, their hair full and glossy, their shorts clean and tight, it was hard not to feel like a dork. Their flesh looked more refined than the flesh I was serving them. Maybe they noticed me looking. They looked at each other. I shied away and stared at the register. I said, “Welcome to O’Dermott’s. May I take your order?”

“Are we sure what we want?”

“We’re not sure what we want. Do you have any recommendations?”

“I think you’ll enjoy numbers one through six.”

One said, “And the house specialty?” She raised an eyebrow.

I pursed my lips and suggested, “Number four tastes different going in from when it comes out.”

“You,” one of them said, smiling and almost touching my nose with her finger, “have a bad attitude.”

“I don’t mean for my attitude to be bad. I’m under a great deal of pressure at my dynamic and high-paying job.”

“While outside it’s a nice day.”

Something about them made me feel bold. I nodded. “Now you get the picture. My shirt and pants are made of polyester. I ate a number two for lunch. My badge spells my name without the
h.
Can I ask: Are you ladies going out on the town?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re painting the town red.”

“I thought so. Are you leading glamorous lives?”

Now they were flirting. I was liking them more. They were looking at each other and giggling.

“We’re going to the opera.”

“We’re off to the Ice Capades.”

“Does your chauffeur have a gun and Grey Poupon?”

This,
I thought to myself,
must be the way that people are charming. Then you find a clever way of seeing if you can meet them later. Then you arrange something. Then you all go out, and get to know them, and you have a good time, and before you know it, you are leading a normal teenage dating life, instead of one where you squat in an abandoned house, cooking up ways to cripple trolls.

They ordered and I took out a tray and put a tray liner on it. I went to get the food. I hit the Sprite button and started filling the cup. Turner was at my side. He said, “Shit, man. Two babes! Babe-o-licious!”

“Yeah,” I said curtly, and yelled, “Grill!” back to Shunt. “Double ham, no onions.”

“You scoring?” said Turner.

“I’m serving their food.”

“You can score and serve, man.”

“Yeah,” I said, and headed off for some nuggets.

Turner was talking to them when I got back to the tray.

“You are being served by O’Dermott’s finest, ladies,” he said. He grabbed my shoulders. “Allow me to do the introduction thing. Anthony. This is Anthony.”

“Hi,” I said. “Your double hamburger will be a minute.” I told them the total.

“Nice to meet you,” one said.

“Anthony is a fine young man,” said Turner.

I nodded. “I’m the talk of the town,” I said. They laughed. They probably thought Turner and I were wacky friends.

“It’s nice to meet both of you,” said one of the girls.

“Would you like sauce with those nuggets?” I asked.

“Anthony is a nice boy,” Turner said. “That’s what you need to know about Anthony. He’s a nice, nice, nice boy. Aren’t you, Anthony?”

“Okay, Turner. Thank you.”

“Anthony is a little angel. Anthony is a complete sweetie-pie.”

“Thank you, Turner. You can stop now.”

“Anthony is a real man. That’s what I like about Anthony.”

“A real man. Thank you, Turner.”

“Other men, when they found me on top of their girlfriends, half undressed? They might’ve cried. But not Anthony. No, there I was, on top of his girlfriend, with my tongue about halfway down her throat, but did Anthony cry? No. He was too much the man. You’re the man, man! You, man, are the man!”

“Turner!”

The two girls were looking nervous. They were looking embarrassed. There were several people in line behind them now.

“No!” Turner cried, speaking now to the whole counter. “There I was, half undressed on top of Diana Gritt, the girl of his dreams. But did he cry? There I was, feeling her tits.
But he did not cry!
No way! No damn way! He ran! He saw who he was up against, turned around, and ran! Anthony ran away! Because he is a good boy! A nice boy! That, my friends, is a very, very, very nice boy!”

“Could I have my change?” asked one girl, holding out her hand. “Is our food ready?”

I looked down at the drawer. Turner’s hand shot back.

It was then that I saw it. I saw the obvious: Turner had taken a ten and was holding it under the edge of the counter, behind his back.

“Turner!” I said. I slammed the drawer shut. “You took a ten!”

“I didn’t take a ten.”

“It’s in your hand!”

“Try to grab it. If you can grab it, you can have it back.”

“Um, I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I still didn’t get my change.”

“Grill’s up!” yelled Shunt. “Come and get it! Swallow hard before the fat congeals!”

I was so ashamed, I turned my back on them all. The girls were looking at me like they were deeply sorry.
Everyone in the line was looking at me. I put together the girls’ order. I took the special order from the top of the bin. I felt so embarrassed, I was weak. I felt like I needed to sit down. I needed to kick something. I needed to break something. I went back to the tray. I put the sandwich down on the tray. The girls weren’t even looking at me anymore. Turner wasn’t around. I guessed he was getting rid of the ten.

I slid the tray toward the two girls. “Have a nice day,” I said.

“You didn’t give me change.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry. He —” I didn’t get any further. I gestured back where Turner might be. I felt myself blush. My face was stinging. I released the drawer. I took out the change. I counted it carefully.

“Actually,” said one of the girls, “maybe we could have this to go?”

I took out a bag. I put my hand inside the bag and flattened out the bottom. I put it on the counter. I took each item off the tray and nestled it carefully in the bag. People in the line were getting impatient. They were tapping their feet. Rattling their keys. I double-folded the bag. I pushed it toward them.

“Have a nice day,” I said.

In my next free moment, I stormed back and knocked as loud as I could on Mike’s door. He had been in back during the whole thing.

He opened the door. “What’s the problem? You are knocking very loud.”

“Mike —”

“I’m not deaf. You could knock quieter.”

“It’s Turner. I was just out there, and he started talking to these girls I was serving, and I looked down, and he was stealing money out of my drawer.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re saying Turner was illegally removing fundage without change or recompense? Unbalancing the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Deliberately?”

“Yeah! I just saw him! I’ve been wondering why he’s being so nice to me, always coming over and talking to me. He’s been taking money the whole time.”

“You say it’s been him, standing there, taking money out of your drawer.”

“I like wondered what was going on. It was him the whole time.”

“Could you come in here? Come in the office.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sure, Mike.” We went in. He closed the door behind me. Behind him, Turner came along, saw us through the window, and waved cheerfully.

“Listen here, Anthony. Listen up and listen good. You better be serious about this.”

“I’m completely serious. He has a personal thing against me. He’s been trying to get me fired from the start.”

“That is ridiculous. Turner is one of the most faithful and long-standing members of our O’Dermott’s family. Turner is sometimes not very nice, but he wouldn’t do something like this. Turner has been the Cashier of the Month four times.”

“I am telling you, it wasn’t me! It was him! That day when I pulled the fire extinguisher?”

“What, Anthony? Tell me, because this should be good.”

“Turner told me to pull it.”

“Turner did no such thing.”

Turner appeared behind Mike’s head, in the window, making a frog face. He wagged his tongue.

“Turner told me that was how to get the fries to come up.”

“If Turner told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

“So you admit Turner could have lied to me?”

“Anthony, Turner is one of our most respected employees. You, on the other hand, have not been a model of good conduct. Do you understand? If someone were to say to me, ‘Is Anthony a model?’ I would have to say: ‘No. No, I’m afraid he’s just not.’ Now here’s what I don’t want to hear: You blaming everything on Turner. Because you’re not supposed to be watching Turner. You’re supposed to be watching Anthony. I don’t know if what you say is true. I don’t know whether it’s false. But I do know that anyone who
paid attention,
do you get me?
Paid attention?
Anyone who paid attention would not be getting into the scrapes you do. Just like on the softball field. Am I understood?”